Ontology and politics: The problems of emergence and reductionism in integrative health science.

The call for more integration between the social and physical sciences has been intensifying in recent years. This project has been especially active in the sociology of health where a number of integrative models have been proposed. However, these models have theoretical problems that have limited their empirical usefulness. Specifically, they have not adequately addressed the theoretical issues surrounding the emergence and reductionsim that occur in multilevel models of health and illness. Using examples from recent research in health and illness, this essay proposes a new conceptualization of integrative science that is based on a pragmatic tension between emergence and reductionism. This will reorient the focus from questions of ontology to questions of pragmatics. In doing so, I seek to craft a theory that can make sense of multilevel research while being sensitive to the inevitable problems of complexity and structural violence that develop in the translation of multilevel health research into diverse social realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]